Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The high competition in mining industry has pushed many operations to be active and innovative with their strategies in improving overall productivity. A competitive mine would try to increase their daily throughput to reduce payback time and increase production for a lower operating cost. Similarly, the mill will implement different techniques to minimize their production time, such as: agglomeration, pre-concentration, and ore classification. The motivation for ore pre-concentration is strong: most ores are typically 98% gangue mineral, which results in a high opportunity to reject a coarse, barren fraction. Potential waste rejection can range from 20% to 55% by mass with metal recoveries between 91-98%. The application of integrated mining, processing and waste disposal systems, where appropriate, is a possible strategy for the development of efficient new mining operations, or alternately the expansion of production at existing mines.

The objective of this special edition is to explore the ways and means of ore mineral pre-sorting/preconcentration by exploiting the unique chemical and physical characteristics many minerals possess. Furthermore, it is hope that through this volume, the most metallurgically efficient and economically feasible pre-concentration methods will be discussed.